In the Arms of the Demon
by SickleYield
Summary: Cabin Fever sends Sylvanas out into a Lordaeron winter. There she encounters the treason of her most trusted advisor. Or is it something else?
1. Chapter 1

Note to the Reader: This is set between WCIII and WoW because I have never played the latter. Accordingly, it may disregard some things in WoW that I don't know about. And, since the games never explain certain things – like the fate of the old death knights from #II, or what it feels like to be Undead - I've felt free to embroider between the lines. Anything not explicitly stated in the games is fair game.

Started in the humor category, but it doesn't seem to strike folks as funny, so it's now a romantic action adventure. More or less.

Chapter I

Winter had come to Lordaeron. Drifts of snow covered the jagged remnants of what had once been a great city, now a graveyard of ice and stone. More snow wafted down from the leaden sky, softening the edges of the world in every direction. It settled in gutters and on the roofs of empty buildings, lying along the dark windowsills. It overlay everything, and the rank weeds of the city's once-verdant garden spots made a surreal topography under its forgiving mantle.

There ought to be bones. There were not. The cold streets were surreal in their emptiness, clean of life in the season when small things sleep.

All the same, shadows moved here and there in the doorless entries and broken archways. Every great city has its ghosts. Lordaeron had more than the usual. There was no telling what they had been in life. Now they were all the same, sharp-faced and diaphanous as they drifted through what had once been their home. The snow fell through them unimpeded as they went about their mournful business.

Except one.

One shape slid from doorway to doorway, a darkness indistinguishable from the shadows of a winter afternoon. Snowflakes fell on the hood of a dark cloak and lay on the fabric without melting, for it was already crusted with flaking ice. They fell likewise on the shaft of a longbow, blackened to give no reflection even in the blinding snow.

A ghost wafted down from a broken rafter into the inside of the house. Without voice or body, it was still not without the power to harm, and it did not look kindly on this invasion of its space. It knew its own kind, and knew the thing in the doorway did not belong.

It stopped short as it found itself looking at the head of a black arrow.

"Men's arrows may not pierce you," said a voice. "These will."

The arrow head hissed faintly as a snowflake touched it. The faint waft of steam was distinctly greenish in color. The ghost did not retreat, but neither did it move closer.

Sylvanas Windrunner shrugged, eased her pull on the bow, and padded on to the next doorway. She was pleased to observe that she left no footprints in the snow. Elves and banshees had that much in common, at least, she thought bitterly.

All things considered, she should not be here. Varimathras had warned her over and over against venturing out of the Undercity's Royal Quarter. He would undoubtedly grumble if he learned where she had been.

Sylvanas saw that as unlikely, given that no one knew the route she had taken to reach the surface. She had taken care to insure no one would stumble on it by accident. And even if they did…

An undead, fearful of dissolution, would balk at the portions which required swimming. A living mortal, should they find it from the outside, would never make it through her carefully arranged series of traps.

She'd been a strong swimmer in life. Even the horror of undeath could not change that. Besides, the venomous will that kept her soul in this too-solid flesh would never let her melt. Not in water. Not in acid. Not even in the black blood of her enemies, though one day she hoped to try it.

Meanwhile, the Undercity was safe in Varimathras' capable clawed hands. _No doubt the old demon just wants me where he can keep an eye on me. I wonder if he worries that I will replace him with someone else, now that the Undercity is established._

At the moment, she had no such intention. Varimathras was an excellent majordomo. The Dreadlord was careful, devious, and unexpectedly meticulous, and he had shown an impressive capacity for administrating a city of the Forsaken.

_It's just as well to let him think I might, _Sylvanas thought_. It will keep him honest. It certainly has so far._

Her system of spies had found no trace of dishonesty in him. He seemed to have well and truly turned his back on the past and all possibility of returning to the Nathrezim.

Which was strange, Sylvanas thought, shaking her long dark braid. Bits of ice cracked and slid from her skin, tiny shards falling to lose themselves in the snow.

_Killing his own brother couldn't be _that_ bad, for a demon. _She understood little and cared less about the inner workings of Nathrezim society, but she suspected it was sufficiently ruthless to permit anything to one who was strong enough.

_Perhaps that's it. Perhaps he's afraid of his own weakness. _He'd given in to her awfully quickly, and she'd thought so at the time. _He may not be able to hold his own against the other Dreadlords. Who knows? Perhaps Balnazzar was already planning to kill him when I came along. He didn't seem very reluctant to kill his own brother._

Sylvanas quashed a rising memory of her own sister. There was no knowing where Alleria was now, but she hoped it was far, far away from the unrestful corpse of her sibling. That life was over. Any contact with it could only destroy what remained.

She did not imagine there was much filial feeling among Dreadlords, Sylvanas thought, dragging herself back to the other train of thought. _Varimathras would probably kill his own mother, or whatever progenitor demons have, if he thought it would buy him a shred of advantage._

She was close to her destination now. The high walls of the palace loomed above the remains of other buildings up ahead.

Except for the one whose house she had entered, the ghosts gave her a wide berth. They seemed to know that she belonged to the same grim fraternity as they did. _I wonder why they all look the same?_ Sylvanas thought.

She paused for a second to listen. Once upon a time, she would have held her breath to listen for the sound of other heartbeats.

That was no longer necessary. She did not breathe, except to speak, and a good number of her enemies did not have beating hearts.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

A few minutes later, the Dark Lady stood in the throne chamber. The ceiling was intact here, looming high overhead. Icicles hung from the balconies of the round room, and snow had blown in to form a graceful fan from the doorway out into the cracked tiles of the floor.

Whenever she began to tire of her gross parody of life, when the days grew long and the nights grew longer, she came here. Now she crouched in the shadow of the hulking throne, staring up with burning eyes.

_This is where it began_, Sylvanas thought, feeling the old hatred rise like bile. Summer or winter, it was the only thing that could warm her. _This is where he killed his father. This is where the blood of a king was spilt in Lordaeron for the first time in years on years, far back into the memory of the Elves._

But it was not the true beginning. That had taken place far off, when the thrice-cursed Prince had sold his soul for a sword and a false promise.

_And one day I will find him there,_ Sylvanas swore, not for the first time and not for the hundredth. _I will find him and I will tear out his black heart, and I will drink his cold blood and die, joyful that he is dead. I will avenge my kin, whose survivors would recoil to see me as I am now._

"I swear," Sylvanas whispered. The sound echoed unexpectedly in the empty throne room, returning strange rustlings from the balconies. Her keen cold ears returned what might have been the sound of distant footsteps…

She realized what was happening when it was already too late. The balconies suddenly filled with dwarves, muskets and mortars at the ready. The sound of hoofbeats turned into a dozen knights pouring through the room's arched doorways, and just like that, she was surrounded.

Sylvanas crouched down in the throne's shadow, nocking a black arrow. No one had seen her yet. Human and dwarfish eyes were not as keen as hers had been, in the days when her heart beat and her blood was red.

A barrel-chested man on a white horse reigned up a few yards from the throne. He held a sword in his right hand. As he dropped the reins, Sylvanas saw the soul gem in his gauntleted left. It glowed darkly, casting an aura something like light and something like shadow over man and horse. He wore no helmet, and the black light cast deep hollows in his face.

"I know you're here," he said. "This cursed thing never fails, when it comes to finding its own kind."

A soft wail came from the soul gem, and Sylvanas laughed silently as she heard the voice of one of her own banshees. She stood up, drawing the arrow's fletching back to her cheek. (The feathers were soft on her cold skin, almost warm.) She heard the sound of muskets being cocked all around her, waiting the order to fire. If it came to that, they would be too late. No dwarfish trigger finger would ever be as quick as the Dark Lady's hand on a bowstring.

"You've shown unusual cleverness, for a human," she said. "I wonder if we could track your kind that way?"

The knight glared at her, squinting through the gloom, as his men closed in around the throne. He shoved the soul gem into a pouch on his saddle.

"You're no banshee," he said suspiciously.

"Yes, I am," Sylvanas said.

"No, you're not. I can bloody well see your feet touching the ground. What are you?"

"You'll know soon enough." -I could almost pity them. They make it so easy.-

She began to draw mana up around her, and faint silver traces circled in the air as she prepared her charm.

The knight laughed at her.

"You can't possess me," he said. "I found out the hard way that I'm entirely immune. How do you think we collected the other one? And believe me when I say that if you try for anyone else here, I'll hack you into a pile of reeking guts before you get inside his head. Does that frighten you? Would you like to find out what is _worse _than dying, woman?"

"There is nothing you can do to me that will be worse than what has already been done," Sylvanas said.

A human would begin to tire of holding the bow drawn for so long. Perhaps even an elf. But dead muscles can keep pulling until they tear themselves apart, or the will that drives them falters. Sylvanas was far, far beyond the point of being able to falter.

"We'll see. Since you seem more or less solid, I think we'll try and take you alive, insofar as that's possible," the knight said. He waved a hand in some prearranged signal, and the dwarves on the balconies lowered their weapons. "Then we'll hang you up by one ankle and see how long we can keep cutting bits of you off. When there's nothing left, the man with the most bits wins a cask of new ale. What do you say, Men?"

Dark murmurs of agreement came from the circle of mounted men. They moved their horses closer. One or two of the animals blew noisily as they caught Sylvanas' scent.

_They're in the dwarves' sightlines now,_ Sylvanas thought. _They won't be able to shoot without hitting their own men._

"Wait, Lord Dirath," one of the knights said suddenly. "I think I know who this is. Holy Light! I thought she seemed familiar."

"What?" Dirath asked, without taking his eyes from Sylvanas. His horse's head shielded his body from her, so that if she fired she must risk the easily-avoided shot at his eyes. But the horse's armor was makeshift. There were gaps…

"This is the _Dark Lady._ She's the Queen of the whole stinking lot," the knight said. "They say she never leaves the Undercity without a crowd of bodyguards."

"Then it looks like we've been rather fortunate," Lord Dirath said. "Take her."

It seemed as good a time as any. Sylvanas shot his horse in the neck.

She dove behind the throne, rolled, and came up on the other side. She pulled and shot again, and curses rang out as another rider was pinned under a half-ton of falling horseflesh. Then a horse loomed up in front of her, cutting off her view of the others. She seized the bridle and swung herself nimbly up in front of the rider, subtly changing the structure of the mana now beginning to envelop her body.

Her life drain was very effective at close range. Green energy crackled between the two bodies. Sylvanas felt the knight stiffen as life flowed into her. Then he toppled from the saddle behind her, instantly a corpse.

The horse panicked at the metallic stench of strange magic, and Sylvanas dove off and behind the throne just as two other men tried to hack her out of the saddle. A blade caught her right arm on the way by, and blood spattered in a black fan on the cold floor.

It is a myth that the Undead do not feel pain. Perhaps this is true of the ghouls and the abominations, whose understanding is limited to killing and feeding. But those which possess any modicum of a thinking self are never free from pain from the first moment of their unsleeping existence until it ends.

It was no wonder, in the constant dull agony of being what she was, that Sylvanas hardly noticed the wound in her arm. She nocked and fired in rapid succession, and two men fell with black arrows in the joints of their armor. She need not strike anything vital. The venom of –her- arrows was brewed from her own blood, the most poisonous thing she knew of on the face of her entire miserable world. From the corner of her eye she saw them fall, and knew with bleak satisfaction that soon they would be hers to command.

It would be too late. Eight men still remained on horseback, and a glimpse around the edge of the throne revealed Lord Dirath on his feet with his broadsword in hand. Sylvanas did not even try to steal his mind this time.

She took the man next to him, instead.

The knight froze as the silver rings of her charm swirled around him.

"Kill Dirath," Sylvanas hissed. The knight obediently reigned his horse around and tried to cut down his own Lord.

She heard a dull _pop_ as she ducked down again. A musket ball pinged off the dead man's seat next to Sylvanas, chips of stone stinging her uninjured arm. The dwarves had decided to risk it, apparently. She smiled humorlessly. The sound of seven mounted men cursing as they all tried to converge on one small dais filled her ears. As she had expected, they were used to open ground, and they were getting in each others' way.

And the sharpshooters' way, of course. Sylvanas heard a horse's inhuman scream as a dwarvish musket ball struck.

Then she heard a distant _boom. _She knew what was coming, but there was nowhere to go. The mortar landed right next to her, and in the next instant a hundred shards of hot metal shredded through her limited armor and into what was underneath.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III

Sylvanas realized, after the first moment of agonized startlement, that her cape was on fire. She beat it out, grinding her teeth. Her body was scorching at every point the shrapnel had transfixed her. No human can describe the sensation. A human would be dead. She could _feel_ the needles of iron in her heart and her lung. Slivers hissed in icy flesh all down her left side. With her right eye, she saw the steam rise. It was probably just as well that she could not see the condition of the left one.

The heat of the blast seemed to have cauterized her left arm, at least, along with all the exposed skin on that side. Her hand had not let go of her bow. She was not sure she could make the fingers uncurl if she tried.

Undead do not know the merciful delay of pain that is shock, and though loss of blood weakens them, it cannot cloud their senses. Sylvanas knew with perfect clarity what was about to happen.

Her unlife was about to come to an end. She raged silently, cursing her own folly and the miserable chance that had led the knights to her. She had run out of mana, and even if she managed to kill the remaining men with her bow, she had seen at least a dozen dwarves on the balconies. It would only take a few more mortar blasts to reduce her to doll rags, and that would be the end of it.

Besides, she would not do well at hand-to-hand with the muscle in her left arm and leg full of shrapnel. Lord Dirath would suffer no such inconvenience.

The knights seemed to be holding back, no doubt waiting to see if she would get up from behind the throne or not.

_Mortar shots come in twos._ Where was the second one?

A dwarfish voice screamed, the echo unbelievably loud in the cavernous room. Sylvanas heard a loud _crunch_, then another. She risked a look, the remains of her neck muscles shrieking, and saw the two broken bodies lying on the buckled tile a few yards away. _The mortar team?_

A strange sound came from the edges of the room, a chitter like the rattle of bones. Sylvanas thought she had seen cloaked figures in the archways, but she dared not put her head up again.

And there was another sound.

"What's that?" asked a human voice, and then Sylvanas recognized the low, metallic vibration for what it was. It was followed by a sudden roar, and she threw herself to the floor as flames towered up toward the ceiling from the other side of the throne.

A few seconds later, the conflagration died down, leaving behind a ringing silence. Slowly and painfully, Sylvanas drew an arrow and nocked it. It took all the effort of her considerable will to shove herself to her feet and turn to face the room.

The throne and the dais were scorched black in a perfect circle, steaming with the remains of ice and snow. Scattered masses of char lay among the twisted remains of three suits of armor. With her whole eye she saw the three men she had accounted for. Flesh already began to melt from the bones of the two her arrows had struck. A disemboweled corpse toward the back of the room must be the man she'd told to attack Lord Dirath.

_Seven men and two horses._ But there was no accounting for the ten shriveled bodies that lay outside the radius of the fire, flesh of man and horse alike browned and stretched like mummies. Four dwarves lay draped over the balconies, seemingly already decaying. The stone around them crackled, crumbling as if it had aged a thousand years in a second.

Lord Dirath himself stood near the body of the disemboweled man, his head bowed. His hand still clutched his sword, but it hung down at his side. A faint green smoke curled about his head and shoulders.

"Varimathras," Sylvanas said. "Where are you?"

Leathery wings rustled. The Dreadlord coasted down from a balcony, seemingly weightless despite his massive arms and shoulders. He landed gracefully a few yards from the throne, split-toed feet just touching the ground.

"I am here, my Queen," Varimathras said.

Six cloaked figures came forward from the edges of the room. Their feet clicked on the stone like dice in a box. Each one walked with a staff, and one had a globe of green glass atop it. Two others had broken remains of globes as well. The rest seemed to have improvised with anything clear they could find, bits of clear stone and glass wired to the tops of the staves. All six staves smoked with black energy, and Sylvanas caught the verdigris smell of mana on the chilly air.

The ragged cloaks did not hide everything. Red eyes glowed from beneath the hoods, and ancient mail could be seen beneath the tatters of black fabric.

The hands that held the staves were fleshless, nothing but naked bone.

Sylvanas reached up to push back the remains of her hood as she looked at them, unobtrusively drawing an arrow from her quiver. A cold suspicion began to coalesce in her mind.

"Milady, you are wounded!"

She was certain the concern in his voice was entirely sarcastic, but it was well done, nonetheless. His pale, ascetic faced looked even more pinched than usual.

"Varimathras, what are these?"

Her voice came out a little slurred, probably the result of the shard she felt buried in her left cheek. It was already cooling rapidly toward the temperature of her body.

"They have traveled a long way, Milady," the Dreadlord said quietly, his resonant voice falling thickly on the silence. "I met them on the outskirts of the ruins after I followed you up."

"I might have known," Sylvanas said slowly. "How did you get through the water?"

"I boiled it off," Varimathras said. He flapped his wings slightly, causing his feet to leave the ground for a second. Fangs showed between his white lips as he spoke. "It took considerable mana, but not much time. Do not worry, I will certainly see it put back. The escape route was an excellent idea, but its execution requires a little more preparation."

"You should have plenty of time for that," Sylvanas said. "I confess I am impressed with your initiative." _He must have been planning this for ages, waiting for his opportunity,_ she thought. _Not a single one of my spies caught him out, so he must not have told anyone in the Undercity. He's just been biding his time, and then these humans came along and made everything easy._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter IV

In her own bleak way, Sylvanas was not displeased. Wasn't she faced with the consequences of her own folly? At least he hadn't thought it would be easy. _And now that I could hardly fight off one abomination, he doesn't need the humans any more. I wonder why he let some of the dwarves get away?_

"Thank you," Varimathras said, still in that strangely quiet voice. "Milady Sylvanas, you really do not look well."

"What, wasn't the mortar team part of your strategy?" she asked, speaking slowly to make her words clear. "Then you won't even need your… Whatever they are." Her voice covered the sound of the bowstring stretching as she nocked the arrow behind King Terenas' throne. She had to lean heavily against the stone back to do it, since her left leg muscles were not quite functional and kept trying to buckle. Her black arrows had done their work, and two skeletons in armor now stood where the bodies of men had been. They gnashed their teeth, awaiting orders.

"It's entirely like you to over-plan something like this," she went on. "Are you really such a coward that you don't think you could take me yourself even _now?_"

Varimathras stared at her, his black eyes impenetrable.

"Answer me, curse you," Sylvanas said.

"Milady," Varimathras said slowly, flapping his wings again. "You think this is some kind of a _coup_?"

Sylvanas stared back with her one good eye, dumbfounded at his reaction.

"I mapped out your route the first time you used it," Varimathras said. "Every time you visited the surface these last few months, I took the Elevator and doubled back to follow you. I knew you would not follow my advice, and I was certain that if I left you alone, you would come to harm. It is clear that I was entirely correct."

"I never saw you," Sylvanas said. "I was an Elven ranger for _centuries_, and I never saw you _once_."

"I am a Nathrezim," Varimathras said. "How often did you look up, Milady?"

Sylvanas stood silent, letting the bow string go slack. She could feel tendons tearing in the arm now, anyway. The throne was like a block of ice, colder than she was, leaching away even the little warmth the splinters had left her.

She –had- looked up. But she had been listening for the clank of dwarvish flying machines or the grind of gargoyle joints. The soft whisper of demon wings could easily be lost in muffling snow.

"You're saying you've been following me all this time so you could protect me?"

"As is my duty and my privilege, my Queen."

"But why?"

Varimathras shrugged his huge shoulders. "Did I not promise to serve you?"

"When I told you it was that or die, yes," Sylvanas said drily.

"Threats are an established means of gaining fealty among my people, Milady," Varimathras said. "I have, I confess, heard better than yours."

"You've heard better - than - ?"

"Ahem," Varimathras cleared his throat as Sylvanas slurred to an outraged halt. "For a first effort in one so new to our ways, however, I was very impressed. Mine is a calculating race, Lady Sylvanas. And you showed facility for calculation, in addition to your other qualities.

"You presented me with a logical problem well before my capture. I saw that the Undead willingly followed you, which was no mean accomplishment in itself. However, I knew it would not be enough against the might of our combined armies. And I knew that, while the three of us united would destroy you, your abilities were such that it would only require the assistance of one to insure your victory. From then on, with the right help and advice, I knew you would rise without check."

Sylvanas edged around the throne and half-collapsed on the edge of the seat, arrows forgotten. (She still did not seem able to let go of the bow.) She was not sure she believed what she was hearing, but it really did not matter. He could still kill her any time he wished.

He watched her, frowning with worry which might, just possibly, be real. His eyebrows were quite large.

"You're saying you were _never_ afraid for your life?" Sylvanas said.

Around her, the bony knights leaned silently on their makeshift staves, patient as Undeads are wont to be. The other inhabitants of the room were in no shape to complain.

"Of course I was, Milady," Varimathras said. "Once I was captured, you had more than enough resources to have me killed."

"But you don't think I could have done it myself?"

"Ahem." Varimathras cleared his throat again. "We are not dissimilar in our ability to use magic. But I had, at that point, considerably more experience than did you, Milady."

She noted with some irritation that he forebore to even mention the wings, claws, or the fact he was twice her size.

"I have seen lifetimes of men, Varimathras," Sylvanas said. At the moment, she felt every second of that age. She had been wounded often, but generally she had been able to heal herself not long afterwards. Varimathras had always been very insistent that she keep obsidian statues close by. She had laughed at him, in the privacy of her own head, for being a fawning coward.

"Yes," Varimathras said. He spread his clawed fingers. "I myself am of a similar age. But I have been a Dreadlord all that time. You had only been an Undead for a few weeks when we first met, my Queen."

"I see," Sylvanas said slowly. She forced between her stiff lips the question she had been waiting to ask. "Then why didn't you kill me then, and add my forces to your own?" The shard in her cheek was causing real trouble now, but pulling it out without a way to regenerate would simply do more damage. "You could do it now. It would be logical. Or…"

How many times had they been alone together, these last few months? She had been so sure of him that she had never insisted they be guarded. In hindsight, that seemed particularly idiotic.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter V

"You are a suspicious woman, yet you have been rather trusting of me," Varimathras said, apparently guessing her thoughts. "I have tried to merit that trust. It is not something which demons generally offer one another. Let me assure you that I value it very highly."

"Why?" Sylvanas asked again.

Varimathras rustled his wings uneasily. "Please, Milady, let me take you back to the Quarter. The day is cold, and there may be other enemies between here and the Elevator. We will talk on the way."

"So be it," Sylvanas said. She waved her two new skeletons toward Lord Dirath. "Kill him." The knight still stood mired in Varimathras' sleep spell. The skeletons promptly turned and clanked over to the unconscious man, who became a dead man shortly thereafter. His armor clattered on the tile floor as he fell.

"See if you can make a new man of him," Sylvanas said. "There's a soul gem in his horse's saddle bag that you should have a look at later."

"Certainly, Milady," Varimathras said. "I will see that he is brought below once we return. And now, if you permit it?"

"Yes, of course." Varimathras moved forward with his bounding half-walk and gently lifted her from the cold throne. Sylvanas knew, logically, that a demon should be warm, but she was still surprised by the heat pulsing through his arms as he picked her up. He turned to face the six strangers.

"Milady, I meant to introduce those who assisted me in slaying your enemies," he said. "This is Lord Narinth Braindrinker and what remains of his cohort."

"What are they?" Sylvanas said, trying to get a good look without moving her head from Varimathras' chest. She was rapidly discovering that, while she had long considered herself indifferent to cold, she had been wrong.

"They are death knights, my Queen."

"_These_ are death knights?"

Lord Braindrinker, the only skeleton with a full globe on his staff, stood up straighter. A profound, hissing bass issued from beneath his hood. "Yes, Lady. We were the first. The shaman raised us, and when the Horde fell, we were forgotten."

"They will not have us now," said another. "Nor would the Scourge. Their knights wear flesh as they would a garment."

"Then you are Forsaken," Sylvanas said. "As we are. You are welcome to join us. If you are loyal, I will see you rewarded. If you betray me, your existence will end. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Master," hissed six voices. The old knights bowed deeply.

"Then follow me," Varimathras said, and just like that, he was in the air, gliding through the doorway of the throne chamber. Sylvanas heard bone clatter on tile as her new subjects followed.

"Now answer my question," Sylvanas muttered into his chest. She was no doubt ruining the fabric of his doublet. She would see he had another one.

"Which question, Milady?"

"Why?"

"Oh, that," Varimathras said. "Ahem." Black eyes looked at her sidelong, very close now. "Do you know, at my age I thought I would be settled down with four or five Maidens of Pain by now? But I went to war for the Burning Legion, instead. Am I hurting you, Milady?"

Sylvanas clung tightly to his doublet with her mostly-uninjured right hand. She would never _wear_ red velvet, of course, but she began to see it might have its uses.

"No. Keep talking."

"Yes, my Queen." His wings flapped on almost soundlessly, sweeping the snow away from her face as they moved through the air. "I came to this strange continent, bent on advancing my own ambitions, and then we were cut off from our orders. And then I met a powerful, a cunning, and a very angry woman, and I am afraid I rather lost my head." He sounded, if anything, slightly embarrassed. "You will note I do not say heart. I am not sure a Nathrezim can be said to have one."  
"That's all right," Sylvanas said. "I don't believe I have one, either."

No. The bitterness was still there, the aching desire for vengeance filling her almost as fully as the pain. But she might, if she was very fortunate, find something else there as well.

After all, trustworthy councilors were not so easy to come by. Neither, for that matter, were warm bodies in the Undercity.

"Then if you will take an old demon's advice, it will be my honor to serve," Varimathras said. His tone became the fussier one with which she was very familiar. "I _will_ ask, Milady, that next time you choose to leave the Quarter you will _please_ take your honor guard with you."

"Oh, yes?" Sylvanas retorted. "And what about my majordomo? Who, may I ask, is ruling the Undercity at this moment?"

An embarrassed cough was the only answer, almost lost in the wind.

"I thought so," Sylvanas said.

So on they flew through the cold of a Lordaeron winter, the banshee in the arms of the demon. And beneath them, falling slightly behind, six old death knights clattered through the snow. Under the blackening grime, one of them had a robe which might, at one time, conceivably have been yellow.

"Run faster," said Lord Braindrinker.

"Very well," growled another. The skeleton in the possibly-yellow robe muttered something.

"What was that?" Braindrinker asked sharply.

"Nothing, Lord."

"I thought you said '_This is why I ended _- "

"No, Lord."

"Indeed," the old knight said coldly. "And I know for a _fact_ why you did it, and if you don't stop saying that, I will pull off every one of your metatarsals."

In the rising wind, much sound was lost. But it was just possible that one of the knights was heard to mutter, "_That doesn't hurt!"_

Probably not

THE END

Explanatory Note:

If you didn't get that last bit, it may be because you have not played Warcraft II. If you haven't, I urge you to do so. The graphics aren't as good, but the gameplay has much to recommend it, including more strategy and less RPG elements. I have no idea why Blizzard did not feel compelled to explain what happened to the skeletal death knights from WCII, but I plan to throw them into at least one more story of mine because I think they are far more interesting than the new "pale 'n pretty" variety.

You are no doubt familiar with the spells Unholy Armor, Death and Decay, Death Coil, Raise Dead, and Tornado. All of these originally belonged to the death knights, who were a spellcaster (with the Ogre Magi) rather than a melee unit. They rode horses in the original game, and were quite effective against enemy gryphons and buildings.

All this to say that I thought that since they are not heard from in the WCIII universe, they must be few and bedraggled. My reasoning is that no doubt the new Scourge would sneer at them, and they in turn would be far from impressed by this "giving up your soul for a sword" business (given that Shadow Council members had to give up their LIVES to be granted use of a human body). Thanks for reading and if you liked this, please check out the "Unlikely Heroes" series!


End file.
